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Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 11:48 am
In the Old Testament, he is known as a raging tribal deity—and is not much improved in the New Testament: Jesus speaks of fiery hell and suffering worse than at the time of Noah when the Kingdom arrives. The idea that God loves his enemies is a pretty hard sell.
So what gets? Does this show that God's advice to love your enemies is just bad?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 11:51 am
Y'see, the OT God was the demiurge Yaldabaoth, and he was a bungler with anger management issues. The NT God is the God of Love, however he's the God who has hell in case we don't love him back, so arguably worse than the first guy.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 12:03 pm
(This post was last modified: November 29, 2022 at 12:03 pm by purplepurpose.)
Jesus was an idealistic persona. His Father isnt.
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 12:18 pm
OT - “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord,”
I don't see a lot of references to God hating people in the OT, care to point me in that direction? I mean a lot of animals and acts were detestable which is really intense dislike. I do grant that psalms does make a lot of assumptions on God's behalf toward that.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 12:23 pm
(November 29, 2022 at 12:18 pm)tackattack Wrote: OT - “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord,”
Just like Jesus, OT god gives plenty of bad advice that even he can not hold to.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 1:06 pm
(November 29, 2022 at 12:18 pm)tackattack Wrote: OT - “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord,”
I don't see a lot of references to God hating people in the OT, care to point me in that direction? I mean a lot of animals and acts were detestable which is really intense dislike. I do grant that psalms does make a lot of assumptions on God's behalf toward that.
Seem to hate the Amalekites for “ I remember that which Amalek did to Israel”
Even gave clear instructions to kill everything especially the babies
“3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 1:25 pm
(This post was last modified: November 29, 2022 at 1:27 pm by Anomalocaris.)
No despot worthy or the name would stoop to binding himself with laws he makes for others. And god almighty is transcendentally worthy of that name.
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 1:37 pm
Sounds like a Republican god all right. Laws for thee, but not for me.
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 1:37 pm
(November 29, 2022 at 12:18 pm)tackattack Wrote: OT - “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord,”
I don't see a lot of references to God hating people in the OT, care to point me in that direction? I mean a lot of animals and acts were detestable which is really intense dislike. I do grant that psalms does make a lot of assumptions on God's behalf toward that.
Well, he gave the Amalekites a pretty rough go of it, ditto the Philistines, the Ethiopians, the Syrians and - on at least one occasion - the Israelites. I think you have to have some degree of hate to slaughter tens of thousands of people and destroy their cities.
God was also very specific in at least one of his hatred - Esau.
Boru
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RE: Why doesn't God love his enemies?
November 29, 2022 at 8:58 pm
(November 29, 2022 at 12:18 pm)tackattack Wrote: I don't see a lot of references to God hating people in the OT, care to point me in that direction? I mean a lot of animals and acts were detestable which is really intense dislike. I do grant that psalms does make a lot of assumptions on God's behalf toward that.
Malachi 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
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